Attorney: 'Jailhouse snitch' behind alleged plot to kill FBI agent

An unreliable street gang leader turned government informant is at the heart of the case against a west suburban teenager accused of soliciting the murder of an undercover FBI agent while in custody on terrorism charges, his attorney said today.

"He's a jailhouse snitch," Thomas Anthony Durkin, who represents Adel Daoud, said of the alleged informant. "These are the most unreliable types of witnesses a courthouse has ever seen."

Daoud, 19, was charged last week with one count each of attempted murder of a federal agent, murder-for-hire and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors said the target of the alleged plot was an undercover FBI agent who had posed as a terrorist in New York and supplied Daoud with what he thought was an explosive device to use in a terrorist attack in Chicago.

After Daoud pleaded not guilty to the charges today, Durkin told reporters that the street gang leader approached Daoud in his cell last November while both were being held in the Kankakee County Jail, which often houses federal inmates awaiting trial in Chicago.

As he has in the past, Durkin painted his client as a naïve and gullible teenager, saying the payment allegedly offered in return for the murder was "laughable."

"It's an absurd plot on its face," Durkin said. "He's a 19-year-old kid who has no money."

When Daoud entered U.S. Magistrate Daniel Martin's courtroom this morning, he broke into a goofy grin and waved at his parents sitting in the gallery. After the brief hearing, the frizzy-haired teen laughed as he fist-bumped his attorney, then was led away in handcuffs.

Durkin said after court that his client's "happy-go-lucky" demeanor in court and other curious mannerisms indicate possible psychological problems.

According to an indictment filed last week, Daoud plotted the murder to keep the undercover agent from testifying at trial. The charges alleged that a person connected to Daoud used a cellphone Nov. 28 with the intent of the murder being committed in return for payment.

Daoud was arrested last September as he stood in a Loop alley, punching the trigger of the fake bomb, authorities said. He came under FBI scrutiny in 2011 after posting messages online about killing Americans, according to a criminal complaint filed against him last year. FBI analysts posing as terrorists exchanged messages with Daoud and eventually got him to meet with the undercover agent, who was described as a "cousin" interested in waging jihad.

Over the next several months, Daoud and the undercover agent met several times in the Chicago area and discussed potential targets for an attack, according to the charges. In one meeting in Villa Park last August, Daoud allegedly told the agent he wanted to maximize the carnage so he would feel like he "accomplished something."

"If it's only like five, 10 people, I'm not gonna feel that good," the charges quoted Daoud as saying. "I wanted something that's ... massive. I want something that's gonna make it in the news like tonight."

Daoud faces a potential life sentence if convicted on the terrorism charges, which are scheduled for trial in April.